My fear as well. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Sam Harris, Ezra Klein, and Race
Trump, Adultery, Morality, and the Alinskyite Left
There is no wisdom on the Left and no common sense. Dennis Prager is a prominent purveyor of common sense. So if you don't know what it is you can learn it from him. Here is a sample:
It should be clear that this whole preoccupation with Trump’s past sex life has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with humiliating Trump — and, thereby, hopefully weakening the Trump presidency — the raison d'etre of the media since he was elected. Here’s one proof: The media rightly celebrate, as we all do, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the moral greats of the 20th century despite reports of his having committed adultery on numerous occasions. [I would add that he also plagiarized portions of his Boston University dissertation.]
Likewise, the media and the Left idolized Sen. Ted Kennedy, regularly referring to him as the “Lion of the Senate.” Yet Kennedy was notorious for his lechery — far more so than Trump. Typical Ted Kennedy behavior, as described in New York magazine, was when he and then-fellow Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd “participated in the famous ‘waitress sandwich’ at La Brasserie in 1985, while their dates were in the bathroom.”
John F. Kennedy remains the most revered of Democratic presidents in the modern era. Yet we now know he routinely had affairs in the White House in his wife’s absence and had the Secret Service provide him advance notice of her return.
And, by the way, if sexual infidelity invalidates the character and, therefore, the worthiness of a politician, why doesn’t it invalidate the character and worthiness of an editor at The New York Times or The Washington Post? Why aren’t their sex lives investigated? They have, after all, more influence than almost any politician.
A Double Standard or an Alinskyite Tactic?
One mistake I have corrected in my own political thinking — thanks in part to Malcolm Pollack and 'Jacques' — is the tendency to confuse the double standard with a hard-Left Alinskyite tactic the name of which, if it has one, I don't know.
Suppose you and I are politically opposed but agree on certain values or standards. We are, for example, both strongly committed to free speech and open inquiry. But your behavior suggests a tacit commitment to "Free speech for me but not for thee." This is an example of a double standard. The moniker is infelicitous in that there are not two standards but one; what makes the standard 'double' is that it is inconsistently applied. While sincerely professing a commitment to free speech you tend to take it more seriously in your own case and less seriously in the cases of those with opposing views. You really do accept the value of free speech; it is just that you have a hard time in the heat of conflict applying it fairly and consistently to all parties.
But there is something far worse than the double standard.
The most vicious and mendacious type of leftist will feign an interest in our conservative standards and then use them against us. In many cases they don't even feign the interest.
The sex business referenced above is a good example. Leftists do not value chastity, sexual purity, traditional marriage (as opposed to same-sex 'marriage'), marital fidelity. Talk of lust as a deadly sin is a joke to them. They have a pronounced libertine wobble and are entirely too 'sophisticated' for the above. They celebrate 'alternative sexual lifestyles.' Bestiality is not a grave sin but something to joke about (Al Franken).
Since they do not share our standards when it comes to sexual behavior, it is a mistake to accuse them of a double standard when they pillory Trump while giving Teddy a pass. The truth is, they see politics as war and will do anything to win including using our standards against us while mocking those very standards.
The same with free speech. The Alinskyite hard Left doesn't give a damn about free speech except insofar as they can use it it to destroy free speech. These tactics are at least as old as V. I. Lenin, and people need to be aware of them.
Our political opponents on the Left are not fellow citizens but domestic enemies and the sooner we admit this fact the better.
As for Teddy Boy's waitress sandwich, you can read about it here.
Thank You for Reading
Readership has been well over 1500 page views per day over the last month or so. Yesterday, total page views topped 3000 and it looks like today will be the same. I thank you for your support.
Some of you are here for political commentary on the passing scene. For my more philosophical and literary writings, please visit Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical.
Friendships Superficially Satisfying
I had known him for years. Our friendship was an acquaintanceship that remained on the surface. Never having gone deep, it never drifted toward the hazards the deep waters hide: the differences that most truly define and distinguish us, but also oppose us to others. And so when he died I could not bring to mind a false word, a sarcastic expression, a competitive tension, or a joke that hid a jab. Not one unpleasant memory sullied my recollection.
Such superficial friendships are perhaps perfect for an imperfect world in which there is more of seeming than of being. We do well to value the surfaces in a world of surfaces. The surfaces are sure; the depths are dubious. On life's surface those who meant little but brighten memory count for more than those who meant more but haunt and disturb from a past their presence makes dark.
Latin Word of the Day: Naufragium
In Defense of ‘Gunsplaining’
He's a Never-Trumper, but David French does talk and write a good game.
By the way, don't confuse a Never-Trumper with an Anti-Trumper. The former constitute a proper subset of the latter. A Never-Trumper is a self-professed conservative of some stripe or other whereas an Anti-Trumper may or may not be. Every Never-Trumper is an Anti-Trumper, but not conversely.
Terminology matters, in politics as in the gun debate.
One reason gun-grabbing 'liberals' are despicable is that they refuse to invest a couple of hours in learning the terms of the debate. French gives examples.
Karl Kraus, Aphoristically, on the Art of the Aphorism
Beim Wort Genommen, (Muenchen: Koesel Verlag, 1955), p. 132:
Einen Aphorismus zu schreiben, wenn man es kann, ist oft schwer. Viel leichter ist es, einen Aphorismus zu schreiben, wenn mann es nicht kann.
It is often difficult to write an aphorism, even for those with the ability. It is much easier when one lacks the ability. (tr. WFV)
The Good of Moral Failure
It teaches humility.
Know Thyself
If your self-assessment does not dismay you, it was not objective.
Vows
Vows ought to be as irreversible as death itself. Time was when they were.
A Modest Proposal: Revise the Second Amendment
John Paul Stevens today in the The New York Times called for the enactment of laws "prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons" and beyond that, as a "more effective and more lasting reform," the repeal of the Second Amendment.
(I wonder if the good justice understands that semi-autos include most handguns owned and carried by Americans today, and that among these pistols there is the low-caliber .22. Does Stevens propose that the existing stock be confiscated? Is he willing to countenance a huge black market?)
Justice Stevens considers the Second Amendment a "relic of the 18th century" with its talk of "a well-regulated militia." Let us assume, arguendo, that he is right and that the Second in its original formulation, and despite District of Columbia v. Heller, does not recognize an individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms.
Well then, a reasonable course would be to strip out the archaic language and bring the Second Amendment up to date. Not repeal simply, but repeal and replace with something better.
How might it go?
Because the right to life entails both the right to self-defense and the right to the appropriate means of self-defense, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
My proposal is both modest and reasonable and in keeping with American values and traditions. Not only that, it throws a sizable sop in the direction of those leftists who support a so-called 'living constitution.' Perhaps we ought to update the whole constitution, but not along destructive leftist lines which have little to do with our values and traditions, but along sound, salutary conservative lines.
Does my eminently reasonable proposal have a chance? Of course not. How about Justice Stevens'? I wouldn't put money on it.
What I will do is buy more guns and ammo. And you should too. 'Voting' with one's wallet is much more effective than voting. Fund the Right, defund the Left. Money is what gets people's attention. Money and the power that emanates from the barrel of a gun.
Ted Kennedy’s Car
In this Age of Feeling, fact-based cogent arguments have little effect on the febrile pates of liberals. So one needs to supplement calm reasoning with bumperstickers, invective, and contumely, not that 'contumely' is a word one could expect a liberal to understand. And so, for your viewing enjoyment, I present:
Of course, cars don't kill people; people kill people with cars. Ergo, etc. Therein lies the brilliance of the bumpersticker.
If you are not aware of the backstory, see the movie Chappaquiddick. It is supposed to come out in April.
Read the lovable and avuncular Howie Carr's Boston Herald review.
And another thing. Liberals who are presently 'storming' over Trump's sexual excesses ought to look in the mirror and take responsibility for their 'normalizing' of such behavior by their complaisance over the sexual predation of the Kennedy brothers, not to mention that of Bill Clinton with the acquiescence of his hilarious enabler.
Liberals who have made our trash culture should not be surprised by the Trump phenomenon.
Addenda
- I said above that cars don't kill people. Qualification: unless they are self-driving. A recent case in Tempe, Arizona.
- I forgot to protest the restriction and demonetization of Prager U videos by Google and YouTube. If you watch these vidoes and find them in any way offensive or worthy of censure, then you are intellectually obtuse, morally defective, liberal-left filth.
The Southern Poverty Law Center
These people seem incapable of distinguishing between reasoned dissent and hate speech. They themselves are vicious left-wing hate-mongers, as witness their attacks on Christina Hoff Sommers and Aayan Hirsi Ali.
Here is yet another argument for gun rights. People this willfully vicious and irrational will stop at nothing.
Is Gun Ownership a Constitutionally Protected Right?
It is important to distinguish between rights and constitutionally protected rights. The right to life, for example, is a natural right. Its existence does not depend on anything of a conventional nature such as a constitution. We have the right whether or not it is constitutionally protected. Our great constitution protects our rights; it does not confer them. You can say that our rights come from God, if you like, or you can say they come from Nature. But the main thing for practical purposes is to realize that our rights are logically antecedent to human decisions, compacts, legislation, and the like.
The right to life generates the right to defend one's life and in consequence the right to the means of self defense. The right to the means of self-defense is protected, not conferred, by the Second Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. As I said, that right is logically antecedent to constitutions and such. It follows that the question whether or not said amendment protects an individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms is a question of constitutional interpretation that is strictly secondary to the question of whether the individual citizen has a right to the means of self defense. Of course he does, as I have argued.
Strictly secondary, but still important. Eugene Volokh argues in a short (4:16) Prager U video that the individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms is constitutionally protected.
If destructive leftists were to repeal the Second Amendment then, strictly speaking, a Second Amendment remedy for this outrage would not be available, but a remedy would be available nonetheless, namely, the overthrow of the leftist tyrants. That would of course require guns. Curiously, then, we need guns not only to protect our rightful gun ownership, but also to protect the constitutional protection of this ownership!
We need guns to: protect our property including our guns; protect our lives and liberties from criminals, terrorists, and rogue elements in the government; fruitfully intimidate destructive leftists so as to insure that they behave properly; protect the Constitution including its 2A protection of our gun rights.
Under the rubric 'protect lives and liberties' comes the right to free speech and the right to protect free speech. For that too guns are needed. Leftists are liberty-denying scum and you must never underestimate their capacity for vicious and totalitarian behavior.